Lemmie Quinn, foreman, who testified that he visited the factory and talked to Mr. Frank just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have left with her pay envelope. He was given a searching examination by the coroner Thursday, but stuck to his statement.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Thursday, May 8^th, 1913

Lemmie Quinn, the Factory Foreman, Was Put Through a Grilling Examination, but He Steadily Maintained That He Visited the Factory Shortly After the Time Mary Phagan is Supposed to Have Left With Her Pay Envelope

FRANK’S TREATMENT OF GIRLS IN FACTORY DESCRIBED AS UNIMPEACHABLE BY ONE YOUNG LADY EMPLOYEE

Mr. Frank’s Manner at the Time He Was Informed of the Tragedy by Officers at His Home on Sunday Morning is Told of by Former Policeman — Both Frank and the Negro Night Watchman Are Expected to Testify During Afternoon, When Inquest Will Be Concluded

The coroner’s inquest into the mysterious murder of Mary Phagan adjourned at 12:55 o’clock Thursday to meet again at 2:30. At the hour of adjournment, six witnesses had testified. They were “Boots” Rogers, former county policeman; Lemmie Quinn, foreman of the pencil factory; Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee of the factory; Miss Hattie Hall, stenographer; J. L. Watkins and Miss Daisy Jones. L. M. Frank and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, were both present at headquarters during the morning session, but neither had been recalled to the stand when recess was ordered. Both are expected to testify during the afternoon, when an effort will be made to conclude the inquest and return a verdict.

Though put through a searching examination by the coroner in an effort to break down his statement that he had visited the factory on the day of the tragedy shortly after noon just after Mary Phagan is supposed to have received her pay envelope and left, Quinn stuck to his story. He declared that he had recalled his visit to Mr. Frank, and that Mr. Frank told him he was going to communicate the fact to his lawyers.

“Boots” Rogers testified that Mr. Frank had changed the tape in the time clock while the officers were in the factory Sunday morning after the body of Mary Phagan had been found, and that he stated at the time that the sheet he took from the clock seemed to be correct. Rogers also described Mr. Frank’s manner when the officers went to his home in an automobile to take him to the factory Sunday morning.

Miss Daisy Jones, who was mistaken for Mary Phagan by J. L. Watkins. She was a witness before the coroner Thursday. G. W. Epps, the boy who came to town with Mary Phagan on the day of the tragedy and left her on her way to the factory [right].

Miss Corinthia Hall, an employee in the factory, testified that Mr. Frank’s treatment of the girls in the factory was unimpeachable. She also testified that she had met Lemmie Quinn at a restaurant near the factory near the noon hour Saturday, her statement being confirmatory of his visit to the factory on the fatal day. J. L. Watkins testified that he had mistaken Miss Daisy Jones for Mary Phagan when he thought he saw Mary on the street near her home on Saturday afternoon about 5 o’clock. Miss Jones testimony was also in this connection.

NEW WITNESSES CALLED.

Following a conference between Solicitor General Dorsey, Assistant Solicitor General Stephens and Chief of Detectives Lanford, just after the inquest recessed for lunch, it was learned that Leo M. Frank and Newt Lee would be recalled at the afternoon session and that there would be the following new witnesses: Miss Alice Wood, of 8 Corput street; Miss Nellie Pitts, of 9 Oliver street, and Mrs. C. D. Dunnegan [sic], of 165 West Fourteenth street.

Rogers Describes Mr. Frank’s Manner When Told of Tragedy

“Boots” Rogers, formerly a county policeman, was the first witness. Mr. Rogers said that he lived at 100 McDonough road. He was at the police station at 3 o’clock on the morning of April 27, he said, when a call came from the factory of the National Pencil company. The officers responded to the call in his automobile, he declared. Those who went with him were Police Sergeants Brown and Dobbs, Call Officer Anderson and Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter.

Mr. Craig was the first person to enter the basement, the witness said. He (Mr. Rogers) entered second; Dobbs and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, bringing up the rear. All saw the body about the same time, Mr. Rogers said.

George W. Epps

The witness said that the girl’s body was lying face down, with the hands folded beneath the body. The body was turned over by Police Sergeant Dobbs, he said.

Rogers continued that they found two notes near the body. The first note, found by Sergeant Dobbs, was on white scratch paper and on a tablet lying face down. The sheet with the note on it was detached and fell off when the tablet was picked up. It was lying about a foot from the body’s right shoulder. Another note was found later, written on a yellow order blank of the factory, lying about a foot from the feet of the body. Rogers wasn’t sure whether he or Sergeant Dobbs noticed that first. He didn’t notice a sharpened pencil nearby. There were a number of stubs, but none sharpened that he saw.

Asked “Who telephoned Mr. Frank that the girl was dead?” he said no one did as nearly as he remembered—that Detective Starnes telephoned Mr. Frank later in the morning to come down to the factory.

About two or three minutes after the first officers arrived with him, said Rogers, they were admitted to the factory. They saw the negro night watchman, Newt Leet, through the glass door, coming down the stairs with his lantern.

“She’s down in the basement—she’s down in the basement,” Rogers aid the negro told them first. He showed them the way down, indicating the trap door and the ladder. Britt Craig, a newspaper man, went first, and was followed by the witness, then by Sergeant Dobbs of the police, and last by the negro.

Everything was in gloom, though a gas jet was burning dimly at the foot of the ladder.

NEGRO WASN’T EXCITED.

“Look out, white folks, you’ll step on her,” the witness said the negro exclaimed when they started toward the rear of the basement. The negro took the lead then, with his lantern, and led them to the body. The negro’s manner was as cool as that of a man would be under the circumstances, said the witness. The negro wasn’t excited. “He was being questioned by all of us,” said the witness. He answered questions promptly.

“How did you happen to find the body?” the witness said was one of the questions put to the negro. He repeated the negro’s answer—of how he was making his rounds, and entered the basement, and by the dim rays of his lantern noticed a suspicious looking object on the ground near the back. “Somebody’s put that there to try to scare me,” the negro said he remarked to himself, going over to see closer. The body was revealed and he hurried back upstairs to telephone the police.

BODY FOUND FACE DOWN.

The witness said that Sergeant Dobbs asked the negro how the body was lying when he found it. The negro’s answer was “on its face.” “Did you turn it over?” the negro was asked; and answered “no sir, I didn’t touch it.”

This point of the evidence was in conflict with previous testimony by the negro himself, who swore at the inquest that when he found the body it was lying on its back face up, with its head toward the back door—exactly the reverse of the position in which the officers found it.

Rogers, the witness, said that the body was lying on its face, hand folded beneath it, when he and the officers first saw it. The negro stuck to the same story while answering all the questions, said the witness. After about ten minutes Sergeant Dobbs ordered that the negro be held under arrest. The negro was taken upstairs by Call Officer Anderson. The rest of them looked around for the girl’s left shoe, which was missing from the body.

Officer Anderson and the negro went upstairs first alone. Twenty or thirty minutes later the witness went up and found the officer and the negro sitting in the office. Anderson was trying to telephone to some of “the factory folks,” said the witness. The negro was sitting nearby in silence. Some one suggested that the officer telephoned to Mr. Frank, the superintendent, at his home. Anderson tried to get Mr. Frank’s number. There was no answer. Anderson talked to the operator, and told her something very serious had happened and that the call was urgent; and Anderson said he heard the persistent ringing that followed.

IDENTIFIED AS MARY PHAGAN.

While he and Sergeant Dobbs had been moving about downstairs, looking for the girl’s shoes, said Rogers, they found the staple on the back door pulled, and pushed the door back and went out into the alley, searching it to Hunter street for some clue. Rogers then went away to find some one to identify the body, said he. The shoe was found by somebody else later. He went to 100 McDonough road, said he, to get Miss Grace Hix, a relative of his own, whom he knew to be employed in the factory. He brought Miss Hix back with him in the automobile, and she identified the body as that of Mary Phagan. Miss Hix sought first to telephone to Mary’s mother, Mrs. J. W. Coleman, but there was no phone in the Coleman home, so she telephoned instead to the home of another girl, Miss Ferguson, and got Mrs. Ferguson, and asked her to go over and break the news to Mrs. Coleman.

MR. FRANK NOTIFIED.

Mr. Rogers said that Detective Starnes, who had been summoned to the factory, called Mr. Frank over the telephone shortly after 6 o’clock. The witness said that he drove Detective Black to Mr. Frank’s home, and that Mrs. Frank, wearing a heavy bathrobe, came to the door. He said that Mr. Frank stood in the hall, fully dressed except his collar and tie.

The witness said that Mr. Frank appeared nervous and excited and asked whether the night watchman had reported to the police that something had happened at the factory. Mr. Rogers said that neither he nor Mr. Black answered.

The witness said that Mr. Frank remarked that a drink of whiskey would do him good and that Mrs. Frank said there was none in the house, but insisted that Mr. Frank get some breakfast before going out. However, they hurried to the undertaking establishment, the witness said.

Mr. Rogers said that on the way to the undertaker’s establishment, Mr. Frank remarked that he had dreamed he had heard his telephone ring about daybreak. Detective Black asked Mr. Frank whether he knew Mary Phagan, the witness said, Mr. Frank replying that he didn’t know whether he did or not.

The witness said that Mr. Frank did not go into the room in which the Phagan child’s body lay.

Mr. Frank remarked, the witness said, that he could refer to his payroll and see whether Mary Phagan worked at the pencil factory.

“Was Mr. Frank steady or trembling at the undertaking establishment?” was asked Mr. Rogers.

“I couldn’t say,” he answered.

Mr. Frank suggested that they go to the factory, the witness said. At the factory, the witness said, they found a number of detectives and policemen and Mr. Darley, an official of the factory, who had been summoned. They went upstairs, the witness aid, to the office and Mr. Frank referred to the payroll, saying that Mary Phagan worked there and that she had been paid $1.20 the day before, shortly after 12 o’clock.

ELEVATOR AT SECOND FLOOR.

The witness said that Mr. Frank then asked if the pay envelope had been found, remarking that it must be around somewhere. They went to the basement in the elevator, which stood at the second floor, the witness said. Mr. Frank switched the current and there was some delay in getting the elevator to work. The fire doors of the elevator were open at this time, Mr. Rogers said, but he didn’t remember whether they were open or closed when he went to the factory the first time.

The elevator was run to the basement, the witness said and Mr. Frank was shown where the body had been found.

CHANGED TAPE IN CLOCK.

When he returned from the basement, said the witness, he sat in Mr. Frank’s inner office with the negro , Lee. Mr. Frank stayed in outer office, but came in twice where he and negro were, and, on the second trip, Mr. Frank looked at the negro and shook his head and said, “Too bad!”

Mr. Frank asked repeatedly if the officers were through with him, saying he wanted to go out and get a cup of coffee, but no opportunity to get the coffee arose. After a while, said the witness, after Mr. Frank had been through the building with Chief of Detectives Lanford, Mr. Frank suggested that they change the tape in the time clock. Mr. Frank took a key to the clock, which he wore on a ring at his belt, and opened the clock with it and removed the time slip and laid it down by the clock. He then went back into his office and got a blank slip. He asked one of the officers standing near to hold back a little lever while he inserted this slip. The lever knocked against a little pencil in the clock. Newt Lee, the negro, was standing near. Mr. Frank turned to the negro and asked, “What is this pencil doing in the hole?” Lee said he had put it there so his number would be sure to register every time he rang. Mr. Frank put the key back at his belt and dated the slip which he had taken from the clock with a pencil which he took from his pocket. The witness though Mr. Frank wrote the date “April 26, 1913,” on it, but he wouldn’t be sure about that, he said.

Mr. Frank, after examining the slip, stated that it was punched correctly, said the witness. He also looked at the slip. The first punch started at 6 p. m., and it was punched every half hour, the witness thought, up to 2:30 o’clock. At 2:30 was the last punch. Mr. Frank took the slip into his own office, said the witness, and the witness said he did not know what became of it after that. A little later they all got into his automobile, said Rogers, Mr. Frank sitting in Mr. Darley’s lap in front beside him (the witness) at the wheel, and some of the officers sitting with Frank in the back.

At this point the coroner asked where Mr. Darley was when the clock slip was being removed. He was standing near by, said the witness.

After delivering his passengers at police headquarters, said Rogers, he went with Miss Hix to take her back to her own home.

On the trip to headquarters, said he, Mr. Frank did not seem to be as nervous as he had been. When he returned to headquarters, said the witness, the detectives were getting Newt Lee, the negro, to write. Lee then seemed very nervous.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, May 8th 1913, “Phagan Inquest in Session; Six Witnesses are Examined Before Adjournment to 2:30,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Wednesday, April 30^th, 1913

The Journal’s Three Handwriting Experts Still Firm in Their Conviction That Newt Lee Wrote Mysterious Notes When Shown Copies Written by Both Frank and Lee in Comparison With Original Note Found

Having compared exact reproductions of the notes found near the body of Mary Phagan with specimens of the handwriting of Newt Lee, the night watchman, and of Leo M. Frank, the superintendent of the National Pencil company, three handwriting experts Tuesday morning stuck to their first opinion that the negro’s handwriting and that of the notes found near the girl are the same.

They did this after a minute examination of the copy of the note written by Frank under direction of the detectives. Each then declared in effect that although it was within the bounds of possibility for Frank to have written the notes found near the girl, that it was extremely improbable.

They reiterated their assertions that the negro’s handwriting was the same as that in the notes.

Frank M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National bank; Andrew M. Bergstrom, assistant cashier of the Third National bank, and Pope C. Driver, chief bookkeeper of the mall department of the American National bank, are the men who gave their opinion on all three notes.

A portion of one of the notes found near the dead girl reads:

“But that long tall black negro did boy his slef.”

At the dictation of Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford, Lee wrote this sentence shortly following his arrest. The same method was employed with Frank.

All three of these specimens were shown to the three handwriting experts.

Mr. Bergstrom declared that although the original note and that written by Frank had many similar points, that he still believed that the hand-writing of the negro was the same as that of the note. He pointed out that a man of Frank’s intelligence could have disguised his hand more readily than the negro.

Mr. Berry refused to consider Frank’s handwriting in connection with the note found near the girl.

“I have already said,” he declared, “that the man who wrote this,” pointing to the handwriting of Lee, “wrote this,” pointing to the handwriting of the note.

He then examined Frank’s handwriting closely, but refused to change his opinion.

Pope Driver also stood pat on his first opinion that the negro’s handwriting was the same as that in the note.

All three experts spoke of the significant fact that in writing the note from dictation Lee had written boy for by and slef for self, thus duplicating the spelling in the note, whereas Frank has spelled five words differently from the way they were spelled in the note.

They pointed out that the t’s in the note and those made by Lee were both crossed near the top, and that the last word in the note and the last word written by Lee are almost exactly alike.

They agreed, however, that the word negro written by Frank and the word negro in the note were very similar.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 30th 1913, “Negro Watchman Wrote Note Found Beside Dead Girl, Experts Declare, After Seeing Frank’s Handwriting,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

1—Mary Phagan’s own handwriting, as shown in her address she wrote for Sunday School teacher. 2—Written by Lee at suggestion of detectives for purpose of comparison. 3—One of notes found in cellar. 4—Also written by Lee at suggestion of detectives.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

City detectives, detailed to run down the murderer or murderers of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, are endeavoring to clear up the mystery surrounding the authorship of two crudely written and badly composed notes which were found near the corpse of the murdered girl in the basement of the pencil factory.

These notes were written in lead pencil. They are misspelled, incoherent and nearly unintellible [sic]. They present two questions to the minds of the detectives:

First: Were they really written by the girl while suffering the last throes of a delirious death?

Second: Are they the handiwork of the murderer, to divert suspicion from himself toward a fictitious negro.

One of the notes reads as follows:

“He said he wood love me laid down like the night witch did it but that long tall black negro did by his sleb.”

Here is the other:

“mama that negro hired down here did this I went to get water and he pushed me down this hole a long tall negro black that has it woke long lean tall negro I write while play with me.”

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “Two Maundering Notes Add Mystery to Crime,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

1—Mary Phagan’s own handwriting, as shown in her address she wrote for Sunday School teacher. 2—Written by Lee at suggestion of detectives for purpose of comparison. 3—One of notes found in cellar. 4—Also written by Lee at suggestion of detectives.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Monday, April 28^th, 1913

It’s Discovery Leads to Theory That She May Have Been Attacked There and Then Dragged to Factory Basement

The finding of half a dozen strands of hair in the cogs of a steel lathe in the metal room on the second floor of the National Pencil company’s factory and the discovery of blood splotches on the floor, early Monday morning, aroused the belief that this was the scene of the murder of fourteen-year-old Mary Phagan, Sunday morning. There were no other evidences of a death struggle here, but there was little in the room that could have been disturbed by a combat.

The hair is of the same shade as that of the murdered girl.

A cunning effort has been made to conceal the blood stains on the floor by the smearing of some kind of a powder over the surface. A single drop of congealed blood was found, however, by a Journal reporter, and a further investigation revealed more.

In the absence of contradictory evidence, it is now the belief that the girl was killed in this room and her body then dragged in the opening in the first floor, where it was lowered to the basement. This tends to implicate more than one murderer, as the weighed nearly 150 pounds.

CALLED THERE FOR PAY?

Miss Phagan formerly worked in the very room in which she is believed to have met death. She and four other girls were employed there in manufacturing the metal caps which fasten the rubber erasers to the ends of pencils.

On last Tuesday, because of a shortage in material, she and her companions were laid off by L. A. Quinn, foreman of the shop. They were to return to work when metal arrived.

On Friday, Foreman Quinn endeavored to locate Miss Phagan and her three companions. He wanted to tell them to call for their pay on Friday, as Saturday, the regular payday, was a holiday. Owing to the fact that the dead girl could not be reached by telephone, she was not notified of the change in payday, and on Saturday she went to the factory expecting to get her money.

What she did after her arrival has not yet been determined by the police.

Miss Phagan was the stepdaughter of J. W. Coleman. Her mother was prostrate with grief on Sunday when, after spending a sleepless night, worrying over her daughter’s unexplained absence, she was told that the girl was the victim of one of the most atrocious murders in the criminal history of Atlanta. Sunday night she became hysterical, and physicians were summoned.

The girl also has three brothers. Two live in Atlanta, and one joined the navy but six months ago.

NEGRO FOUND BODY.

Newt Lee, negro night watchman, discovered the body of the girl at 3:30 o’clock Sunday morning. He called the police, who hastened to the scean [sic] in an automobile. The black met the machine and told an almost incoherent story of how he had stumbled on the body in the darkness of the basement. His manner aroused immediate suspicion in the minds of the officers, and he was later taken into custody. He denies knowledge of the crime, however.

The limbs of the corps [sic] had grown rigid, but the blood which had flowed from the deep wound on the girl’s head was still damp.

Other evidences of murder were all about. The handkerchief of the victim was found forty feet away. It was saturated with blood. Another handkerchief—a man’s—was found beside the body. It too, was soaked in blood.

A hat and a parasol, later identified as belonging to the murdered girl, were found in the elevator shaft.

MESH HANDBAG MISSING.

Her mesh handbag, said to have contained a few dollars in cash and valuless personal effects, was missing, however, though she was said to have taken it from home with her.

On her wrist was a plain gold bracelet. It was bent, and was splotched with blood. Upon a finger of her left hand was a small signet ring upon which was engraved “W.”

It was 6 o’clock Sunday morning before the girl was identified. Miss Grace Hicks, one of the girls employed in the factory, was brought to the scene in an automobile. She swooned as soon as she saw the senseless form and battered face of her former companion.

“It’s Mary Phagan,” she sobbed a moment later, “Poor Mary!”

A few hours later detectives reached the conclusion that the girl had been dragged before the murder, either while in the factory or before her arrival there. An examination showed that a criminal assault had preceded the homicide.

A crude garrotte, manufactured of two strips of underclothing torn from the girl’s body, had been used to choke her. Apparently it had been placed about her neck and then twisted.

One of the theories of the police is that the girl and her later murderer (or murderers) entered the building through the Forsyth street entrance, and that the perpetrators of the crime left through a rear door. This theory is borne out by the fact that a door permitting egress through an alley to West Hunter street was forced open. The staple holding the lock was torn from the woodwork.

HANDWRITING NOT KNOWN.

Efforts to identify the penmanship of the notes found by the dead girl’s side failed. Samples of her handwriting, of Mullinax’s and of that of the negro watchman, all failed to agree with it. If either of the men wrote the messages they successfully disguised their handwriting; if the girl really did write the missives, she did so in the throes of approaching death. One of the notes was penciled on an order blank of the factory.

NEGRO’S STORY UNSHAKEN.

Newt Lee, negro nightwatchman, held as a suspect in solitary confinement, denied absolutely any knowledge of the crime. Without weakening or changing his first statements, in any way, the black stood several severe grillings at the hands of the police Sunday. His story was not shaken.

Accompanied by reporters and detectives, he was taken Sunday to the basement in the pencil factory where he discovered the remains of the pretty girl. In pantomime he re-enacted the finding of the body.

A detective lay on the floor in the exact spot where the body was found. The lights were turned out and the negro told to depict his actions earlier in the morning. While the small audience looked on, the black descended the ladder through the trap door outside. He remained there a few moments and then walked over to the side of the detective.

“That’s the way it happened,” he said. The police admit that the negro’s tale of the finding of the body is plausible and possible.

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 28th 1913, “Strand of Hair in Machine on Second Floor May Be Clew Left by Mary Phagan,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

At the top is a photograph of writing done by Newt Lee, the negro night watchman after his arrest. At the bottom is a photograph of two lines of a note found beside the body of Mary Phagan in the pencil factory cellar. Three handwriting experts—Frank M. Berry, assistant cashier of the Fourth National bank; Andrew M. Bergstrom, assistant cashier of the Third National bank and Pope O. Driver, chief bookkeeper and head of mail departments, of the American National bank, unhesitatingly declare that the same hand penned them both. Detectives are satisfied that Lee knows all about the killing of the girl. The only question in their minds is whether he is alone involved.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal

Tuesday, April 29^th, 1913

Frank M. Berry, of the Fourth National Bank, Andrew M. Bergstrom of Third National, and Pope C. Driver, of the American National, Examined Notes at Journal’s Request And Found Same Person Wrote Both

ALL THREE ARE EXPERTS AND MADE MICROSCOPICAL EXAMINATIONS

Their Investigation Shows He Wrote Both Notes and Seems to Prove Conclusively That Either the Negro Committed the Crime or Knows Who the Guilty Party Is

Through its own investigations The Atlanta Journal has proven conclusively that Newt Lee, the negro night watchman for the National Pencil company, either himself mistreated and murdered pretty Mary Phagan, or that he knows who committed the crime and is assisting the perpetrator to conceal his identity.

Locked in this negro’s breast is the key to the murder mystery, which has shocked the entire south.

Three handwriting experts who Tuesday compared the notes found near the girl’s body in the factory basement with notes written by Lee after his arrest and at the instigation of the city detectives are positive that the same hand penned them all.

The experts who made a microscopical examination of these notes and who are unanimous in declaring that the same person was the author of them all are:

FRANK M. BERRY, assistant cashier of the Fourth National Bank.

ANDREW M. BERGSTROM, assistant cashier of the Third National bank.

POPE O. DRIVER, chief bookkeeper and head of the mail department of the American National bank.

ALL AGREE THAT NEGRO WROTE BOTH.

These men have for years made a study of handwriting and they turn their knowledge to account in detecting all manner of forgeries. In examining the notes submitted to them Tuesday they employed powerful magnifying glasses and minutely analyzed the slant of the writing, the shape and size of the letters, the peculiarities of spelling, the method of expression, and the punctuation.

Two notes were found nearby the corpse of the mutilated girl. One of these, written on a yellow scratch pad, read as follows:

“Mam that negro fire down here did this I went to get water and he push me down thro hole a long tall negro black that hoo it woke long sleam tall negro I wright while play with me.”

The second note was written on a coarse-fibred pencil tablet, such as is used by school children. This note read:

“he said he wood love me (land dab n?) play like nigh witch did it but that long tall black negro did boy his slef.”

Shortly after Lee was arrested Chief of Detectives N. A. Lanford caused him to write the last line of the second note, dictating it to him word by word.

COULDN’T DISGUISE HANDWRITING.

Although the negro was very nervous and very naturally sought to disguise his handwriting he was unable to do so. With the exception of the use of four capital letters in the note written at police headquarters and the insertion of an extra e in the word negro this note was identical with the last two lines in the note found in the basement of the pencil factory.

The experts agreed that the size and slant of the writing was the same, that the mode of expression was identical, that there were characteristic peculiarities in the formation of the o’s, y’s, g’s, t’s, b’s, k’s, n’s and other letters used in the two notes.

In both the negro writes boy for by and slef for self. These and a number of other similarities convinced the experts that Lee wrote the notes found beside the dead girl.

MARY PHAGAN DID NOT WRITE THEM.

They examined the handwriting of Mary Phagan and positively declared that she could not have written these notes, even while delirious and suffering great pain. She wrote smoothly, used good grammar, capitalized, punctuated and spelled properly, and it is pointed out that under no circumstances would she have lapsed into an illiterate style of writing.

It is plain that the notes found in the factory cellar were written by an ignorant and illiterate person. It is also plain that the person who wrote them sought to cast suspicion upon the fireman at the factory; and that they were very particular to describe the man which they alleged to have committed the crime, for in the same sentence of one of them the perpetrator is described as a long, tall, black negro.

The other refers to the intention of the perpetrator to fix the crime on the night watchman. It is believed that Lee deliberately described another negro and that he endeavored to divert suspicion from himself by writing into one of the notes that the guilty man would “play like the nigh witch did it.”

Neither of these notes could have been written by Mary Phagan, even though she were still alive when dragged into the cellar, for the cellar was dark as pitch night. And it is not to be supposed that while in a dying condition she would have found it convenient to have obtained a pencil and two different kinds of tablet paper. Further than this she would not have written two notes.

The detectives are satisfied that Lee wrote both notes, but are of the opinion that he wrote them at different times. After writing the first he evidently thought of something else which he believed would divert suspicion from himself and then wrote the second.

Only one question now puzzles the detectives—

Did Lee murder the girl himself or did he undertake to dispose of the girl’s body and to shield some one else?

* * *

Atlanta Journal, April 29th 1913, “Three Handwriting Experts Say Negro Wrote the Two Notes Found by Body of Girl,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian
August 8^th, 1913

By O. B. KEELER.

They call it a chain that the State has forged, or has tried to forge, to hold Leo Frank to the murder of Mary Phagan.

But isn’t it a rope?

A chain, you know, is as strong as its weakest link. Take one link out, and the chain comes apart.

With a rope, it’s different.

Strand after strand might be cut or broken, and the rope still holds a certain weight. Then might come a time when the cutting of one more strand would cause the rope to break.

The point is, the finished rope will sustain a weight that would instantly snap any one of its several strands.

Bits of Evidence Threads.

And that is what the various bits of circumstantial evidence might better be called—strands or threads.

Edgar Allen Poe, in “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” has nearly exhausted the philosophical phase of accumulative circumstance and its relation to evidence.

Applying the system of the well-known Dupin to the case in point—and REGARDING IT, BE IT UNDERSTOOD, STRICTLY FROM THE STATE’S VIEWPOINT—an analysis of part of the evidence against Leo Frank follows:

First off, the isolated circumstance of Conley’s ability to write would seem as futile as a smoke wreath in sustaining any weight of evidence, except against Conley himself.

But to the fact is added the fact that Frank knew Conley could write.

Still, the thread is flimsy, and even connected with the case against Frank, would appear worthless.

Six Deductions Seen.

But when it develops that Frank knowing Conley could write, and knowing the police were trying to find the author of the murder notes—when Frank, well aware of these things, did not inform the police that Conley was lying when he said he could not write, the following deductions appear:

(1) That Frank did not want to connect Conley with the murder notes which (2) would have been the natural and prompt inclination of a suspected man who knew nothing of the crime himself, so that (3) it appeared Frank knew something of the murder, and (4) knew that Conley knew he knew something of the murder, which (5) justified the conclusion on the part of the State that Frank feared to implicate Conley, lest (6) Conley, in turn, tell something that would implicate him.

Of course, this stand may be broken entirely by the defense, showing Frank never knew the police were ignorant of Conley’s ability to write before the police learned it themselves.

But there is one pretty substantial stand of evidence, as the State sees it—and all having its genesis in the simple fact that Conley knew how to write, and at first denied it.

But that strand of itself surely would fail to carry the burden of the case. There must be others.

Even Conley’s story is strong only by reason of many strands that surround and support it. Presented to a jury, round and unvarnished—tainted by the reek of false affidavits and weakened by the dry-rot of self-interest, Conley’s story never would win a verdict against Leo Frank.

But there is the shred of the murder notes—Conley’s story draws support from that. There is the time factor brought out by the expert testimony—Conley’s story twines itself about the prop of science. There is the agitation of Frank noticed by Newt Lee in the middle of the afternoon—Conley’s story provides for that. There is the visit of Monteen Stover, a tiny circumstance of itself—but of vast importance just so far as it strengthens Conley’s recollection of exact time.

And it is by reason of the rope already well along in the twisting that a hundred other little circumstances become significant that of themselves would be lighter than the air drawn dagger that troubled the dreams of Macbeth.

They fit in with the twisting of the rope.

Will the Rope Hold?

There is Frank’s agitation at home and at the factory. There is the ugly story of habitual “chats” at the factory, guarded by Conley as watchman. And the sending away of Newt Lee that afternoon. And the seeing of Conley by Mrs. White, “loitering” at the place he fixes for himself as watchman, and at the time. And the alleged reluctance of Frank to confront Conley at the jail.

And all the rest of it.

So many little incidents, and most of them small to triviality in themselves.

The point is, each strengthens the other, until the fragile threads become a rope.

Will it hold after Frank’s lawyers have presented their side of the case.

The jury must decide.

* * *

Atlanta Georgian, August 8th 1913, “Bits of Circumstantial Evidence, as Viewed by State, Strands in Rope,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Journal
July 29^th, 1913

QUESTIONS DIRECTED AT NEGRO INDICATED AN EFFORT TO THROW SUSPICION UPON WATCHMAN

“We Might as Well Begin to Show the Negro a Criminal Now as Later,” Declared Attorney Rosser, In Arguing for Admissability of His Questions—Negro Was Taken Over His Testimony Many Times in Effort to Break Him Down

INDICATIONS TUESDAY ARE THAT TRIAL WILL LAST MANY DAYS, PROBABLY AS LONG AS TWO WEEKS

Morning Session Enlivened by Clashes Between Attorneys, Every Point Is Bitterly Contested—Frank Keeps Serene and Untroubled Throughout Session—Full Story of Testimony Given by Witnesses During the Morning

After a luncheon recess of an hour and a half Tuesday the trial of Leo M. Frank was resumed at 2 p. m. with Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs still on the witness stand. The morning session was given over to the continued examination of Newt Lee, the negro night watchman, and the direct and cross examination of Sergeant Dobbs.

There were frequent clashes between the attorneys for the defense and the solicitor during the morning. Every point was bitterly contested, and once the jury was sent from the room while the lawyers argued the fine points of the law. It was evident that the case was to be fought at every point.

The most significant feature of the morning session was an intimation by Attorneys Rosser and Arnold, counsel for Frank, that they might seek to connect the negro nigh watchman with the murder. It was during a colloquy between the lawyers for the defense and the state relative to the admissibility of the negro’s testimony as to what was said to him by the police officers about the contents of the notes found beside Mary Phagan’s body.

Solicitor Dorsey made the point that the notes had not yet been introduced as evidence and unless the defense was seeking to impeach the witness or to connect him with the crime it was not proper for him to questioned concerning the contents of the notes.

Then Attorney Rosser declared: “We’ve got to commence somewhere and at some time to show the negro is a criminal and we might as well begin here as anywhere else.”

Attorney Arnold made the point that the negro’s comment on the contents of the note immediately after they were read to him indicated a previous knowledge of them.

No further effort, however, was made to connect Lee with the murder. The negro was on the stand altogether just four hours and forty-five minutes. The tedious and detailed examination of his witness indicated that every point in the case would be hard fought by both sides. He was led back and forth over the same ground, it being the evident intention of the defense to discredit his statements relating to unusual agitation on the part of Frank on the day of the murder.

Sergeant Dobbs’ testimony concerned the finding of the girl’s body, and the two notes which were picked up near it. Also the condition of the body when found.

During Tuesday afternoon other officers will probably be introduced to give similar evidence, and it is believed the undertaker, who prepared the body for burial, will also be put on the stand.

Court officials believe how that the trial will run well into a second week and that James Conley, the negro sweeper, will be on the stand for two or three days. It is not known when the state will call Conley, but he will doubtless be the climax witness and all the energies of the defense will be directed toward breaking him down.

Frank followed the progress of his trial Tuesday with great interest and apparent satisfaction. He listened intently to everything said in the court room and frequently he conferred with his attorneys. He often smiled while conversing with his wife and mother who sat beside him.

About fifty spectators retained their seats in the court room throughout the recess, foregoing lunch and fresh air in order to insure for themselves good seats at the afternoon session. Mrs. Frank and her husband lunched together in an ante-room of the court. The jury returned form [sic] lunch and a short walk at 1:50 o’clock.

Court reconvened three minutes early, at 1:57 Sergeant Dobbs continued to the stand. He was asked a few questions in cross-examination by Attorney Rosser and then Solicitor Dorsey took up the re-direct examination. The solicitor brought out additional points about the finding of the body. He stressed the fact that the trimming of the girl’s had never has been found so far as the sergeant knows. Sergeant Dobbs identified some blue ribbon as the same that was on Mary Phagan’s hair when her body was found.

DOBBS’ TESTIMONY.

The solicitor read a transcript of the testimony given by Sergeant Dobbs before the coroner’s jury relating to the indications that Mary Phagan’s body had been dragged.

The transcript was right, said the sergeant. The dragging seemed to have started at the corner of the elevator shaft. Using Mary Phagan’s umbrella as a pointer, the solicitor had the sergeant trace the line of the dragging marks.

It showed that the body had been taken out of the elevator and pulled around the corner of the elevator shaft under the ladder. By this testimony the solicitor evidently expected to lay his plan for combatting the possible theory that the defense might advance that the body was taken down the ladder itself.

The solicitor asked the sergeant if it would be possible for a man to carry the body down the ladder. It was hard for man to go down by himself, said the sergeant, and no ordinary man could have carried the body down.

The solicitor then asked the sergeant about a photograph of the rear door of the basement. The photograph appeared in the same frame with the diagram. The photograph showed the hasp in place and the bar across the back of the door.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the bar was in that position when he saw the door, but that the hasp was pulled out and the lock was lying on a platform immediately at the right. The bar evidently did not interfere with the opening of the door, for the door slides and does not swing.

Sergeant Dobbs said that the hasp was not bent and evidently had been pulled straight out. He identified the lock and hasp themselves, the solicitor handing them to him.

The sergeant stated that the body was cold when he found it. He identified the low-quarter shoes. One of them, said he, was on one foot of the body and the other was found on the trash pile near the boiler.

The dead girl’s hands were folded across her breast (beneath her body.) The body was rather stiff, bue [sic] he could work the fingers at the joints.

Leo M. Frank, the accused, was reported to have been sleeping soundly when the deputies went up to awake him in the jail Tuesday morning to take him to court for the second day of his trial.

Frank arrived at court, under charge of Sheriff Mangum, very shortly after 7 o’clock, and his breakfast was brought to him there from his home.

A crowd of several hundred people was gathered around the doors of the court house at 8:30 o’clock.

Mrs. Leo M. Frank, the wife of the accused, and his mother, Mrs. Ray Frank, of Brooklyn, appeared together in the court room about fifteen minutes before the trial was due to resume. Judge Roan, presiding, arrived shortly after them and went into the seclusion of his chambers. Lawyers for both sides arrived at five minutes to 9 o’clock.

Frank entered court at 8:50 o’clock and resumed his seat between his mother and his wife.

LEE RESUMES TESTIMONY.

Judge Roan went upon the bench at 9 o’clock and convened court. The jury brought in and Newt Lee, the negro night watchman on the stand at adjournment Monday afternoon, was recalled to the witness chair.

Just before court was convened, the doors were opened for a few moments and the crowd surged in until the 250 seats in the room were filled, leaving a hundred or more disappointed people outside the doors, which then were shut.

Attorney R. R. Arnold examined the diagram of the pencil factory which the state introduced Monday.

Attorney Rosser resumed his cross-questioning of Newt Lee.

For the first half hour of this interrogation Mr. Rosser sought to develop from the negro just how close he got to the dust bin before he saw the body. He wanted the negro to estimate in feet, which the negro was reluctant to do. Referring to measure distances by object or persons in the court room. The negro did estimate distances in feet, however, qualifying his estimates by “about”.

Mr. Rosser evidently was endeavoring to make the negro admit that he could not [1 word illegible] the dust bin from the toilet, [1 world illegible] he would have found it necessary [1 word illegible] closer in order to see into the bin. As a result of the cross-questioning, the witness said that after he left the toilet he raised the lantern above his head and walked four or five feet toward the dust bin. He was then a good way from the body.

WITNESS BECOMES NETTLED.

When he first saw the feet of the body, the negro declared, he did not believe it was a body lying there. He then was scanning the dust bin to see if there was any fire there.

Mr. Rosser asked him a number of questions as to why he did not look into the dust bin on his former trips to the basement that night, and questioned him also at considerable length as to the relative location of the dust bin and the toilet, asking if it was not true that the dust bin was not considerably at his right at the end of a partition. The negro became nettled at Mr. Rosser’s insistent questioning on this point, and rising to his feet and clapping his hands he declared, “I’m going to tell you just like it is.”

He then explained that the dust bin was diagonally opposite where he stood and in plain view.

Mr. Rosser asked him how far it was from the trap door to the dust bin.

“Isn’t it about 125 feet?”

The negro said he didn’t know, but it was a long way.

Mr. Rosser asked the negro why on his preceding trips into the basement that night he did not go farther back than the ladder. He had gone farther back, said the negro—twenty-five feet or so.

“On this particular trip you went back beyond the toilet, didn’t you?”

The negro said yes, that he would have gone father than he did if he hadn’t seen the body. He walked up close to the body with his lantern over his head. He wanted to see, he said, if it was an “natural” body. He didn’t know but what it might have been an “unnatural” body.

He didn’t know how long he looked at it, he said, before he went to call the police. He didn’t stand there ten minutes, or five.

“I LIT ER RAG.”

“Two minutes?” “I don’t know, sir.” “Two seconds?” “I don’t know, sir, but I’ll tell you the truth. I held up my lantern and looked good and just as quick as I found out it was a natural body I lit er rag!” The bailiffs rapped for order in court.

The face of the body was “all dirty,” said the negro. Several white spots showed through the dirt, however, and the body’s hair was “frizzly.” He realigned at once that it was a white person, said he, and hurried away. He led the police to the basement and showed them the body by their electric searchlights, said he.

He didn’t know how long it was until the police decided it was a white girl. They arrested him right away, said he, and sent him upstairs. Before that, however, he heard one of the officers say, “This is just a child. She must have been killed two or three days.”

He didn’t remember whether they carried him back to the basement any more that morning. Some days later the officers took hi[m] from police station to the basement. The negro didn’t notice whether the rear basement door was open when the officers came. He was positive that it was not open earlier in the night.

The negro, describing the position of the body, declared that the girl was lying on her back with her head turned over so that the left side of her face was up. He saw blood, he said, on the left side of her head.

The attorney cross-examined the negro on his statements made at the coroner’s inquest, and examined the negro for half an hour or more with the evident purpose of discrediting Lee’s testimony of Monday afternoon relative to Frank being arrested on the afternoon of April 26.

TILT IN COUNSEL.

This examination led to a lively tilt of the opposing attorneys. Attorney Rosser was reading from the record of the coroner’s inquest on Lee’s testimony regarding Frank’s actions when he first saw J. M. Gantt at the door of the factory that afternoon. According to the record as read by Mr. Rosser, Lee did not say at the coroner’s inquest that Frank jumped back but did say that he looked frightened. At the inquest, according to Mr. Rosser’s reading, Lee did say that he supposed Frank was frightened because he had fired Gantt from the position of bookkeeper.

Mr. Rosser wanted the witness to repeat that remark. Solicitor Dorsey was objecting immediately. It was a matter of opinion, said the solicitor, and when the negro expressed that opinion he did not know what he, Dorsey, now knows, and what the jury will know. After the attorneys had wrangled for some fifteen minutes over the point, Attorney Rosser turning to the counsel for the state said:

“I want to accommodate my young friends whenever I can.”

Attorney Hooper, who was sitting down, remarked, “Well, you’ve got to accommodate me on this.”

“No, I haven’t,” said Mr. Rosser.

“Yes you have,” returned Hooper.

“The man hasn’t been born that I’ve got to accommodate,” retorted Mr. Rosser. After registering a strenuous objection that Mr. Dorsey had tried to lecture him, Mr. Rosser proceeded. Judge Roan ruled that the negro’s opinion was inadmissible. Mr. Rosser read the opinion, however, without getting an answer from the negro upon it.

LEE DENIES RECORD.

Newt Lee, the witness, took vigorous issue with the record.

“Boss, I can’t help what they write there,” said he. “I’m telling all I know about this.”

Mr. Rosser then went back to the finding of the body and read the record on that, wherein it appeared that when Lee realized it was a body he leaped from where he stood and went up the ladder. The negro demurred at that way of putting it, prefer[r]ing to say that he “lit out.”

Mr. Rosser called the negro’s attention to the fact as he stated it that nowhere in the record of the coroner’s inquest did he state that it took Frank twice as long on Saturday to put the tape on the time clock as it had on a previous occasion. Lee contended that he had told the coroner’s jury that it took “longer,” but Mr. Rosser couldn’t find that in the record. The negro said nobody asked him at the inquest to make a comparative statement.

The negro appeared to be holding his own remarkably well under the rigid cross-examination by Mr. Rosser. He argued with the attorney without hesitancy, and took open issue with the inquest record whenever the attorney contended that it conflicted in minor ways with his testimony in court.

THE NOTES.

Mr. Rosser asked Lee if he was in the basement when the police found some notes beside Mary Phagan. Before Lee could reply to the question Solicitor Dorsey objected. The notes themselves would be the best evidence on that point, he said.

Attorney Rosser argued that he wanted to show Lee’s ready interpretation of these notes. What Lee said is not admissible, returned Mr. Dorsey, because Lee himself was not on trial.

Attorney Reuben Arnold for the first time since the trial began spoke up in court. If Lee had made damaging admissions, he argued to the court, they would be relevant and admissible.

Before the court could rule, the solicitor asked that the jury be taken out of court so the question could be argued. If evidence tending to involve Lee had to come before the jury, said he, he wanted it to come in the shape of admissible evidence and not from the argument of opposing attorneys and “in the right way.” The jury was taken out. This was the first time the jury had left court.

Attorney Arnold addressing the court, contended that any substance or fact connected with the witness Newt Lee, which would show that he had something to do with the killing, is admissible. Although the night watchman admits having discovered the body, and late at night at that, he denies all previous knowledge of the crime and says that two notes were found by the body. The meaning of these notes, said Mr. Arnold, is obscure and doubtful.

ARNOLD READS NOTES.

“We expect to show that the witness testified that two notes were found,” said he. “That the officers endeavored to read them to him and that they were obscure in meaning. One of them read this way. ‘He said he would love me. Laid down. Play like the night witch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by his self.’

“The man who wrote that note was trying to lay the crime on a long tall black negro. It was a clumsy effort to exculpate some other man. As soon as the words ‘night witch’ were read to the witness, he spoke and said ‘That means me. I’m the nightwatchman.’ This shows that the negro had knowledge of these notes. On the stand here he has appeared very dense and ignorant. Mr. Rosser has been compelled to question him at great length to bring out the slightest fact. In this instance, however, he interprets this note in a second and half.”

Solicitor Dorsey was asked by the judge to restate his objection to this.

“This conversation, your honor,” said the solicitor, “occurred between this witness and somebody else. Even had it been with Frank, the defendant, it would not be admissible. He is asked if a man did not read a note to him. The defense concedes that it was a note. They have got this note in their hands at this moment. I contend that it is not admissible to go into the contents of any paper, as the paper itself is the highest and best evidence, and no such paper has been introduced at this trial.

“It is not proper for the defense to attempt to go into the contents of this note by this witness. Such a course would not be proper except for the purpose of impeaching the witness and even then it is necessary to have the highest and best evidence—which is the note itself.”

HOOPER SPEAKS.

Attorney Hooper, for the state, cited a case to show that the question would be inadmissible.

“If they undertake as they have indicated here,” said he, “to put the crime on somebody else, that would put a different aspect on the matter. But until they do drain their guns on some third party, no such evidence can be admitted.”

Attorney Rosser replied by saying:

“Your honor, we’ve got to commence somewhere to show him as a criminal. We can commence here as well as anywhere else.”

Solicitor Dorsey insisted that the defense, through the line of questions put to the negro, was seeking to put the notes in evidence. This was denied by Attorney Rosser. The defense simply is using the notes to refresh its memory, said he, and to suggest questions for the witness.

JUDGE ROAN’S RULE.

Judge Roan ruled that anything was admissible which tended to show that this witness expressed anxiety or trepidation. While ruling that the cross-examination could proceed as begun by the defense, he announced that he would not permit the defense to go into the contents of the notes. The judge said further that it is for the jury to interpret the conduct of the witness. The jury was brought back and the cross-examination was resumed.

Mr. Rosser, reading from the note, asked Lee:

“Didn’t one of the police begin to read this from the note: ‘The tall black slim negro did this. He will try to lay it on the night’—and when he got that far didn’t you say, ‘Boss, that’s me?’”

Solicitor Dorsey again objected, but Judge Roan held against him.

Lee asserted emphatically that he did not exclaim, “Boss, that’s me.” He said that he did say, “Somebody must have been trying to put it off on me.”

This concluded the cross-examination of the negro.

On redirect examination, Solicitor General Dorsey asked:

“Did you ever know Jim Conley?”

“I met him the first time in jail the other day.”

“Did anybody try to put this off on you?”

“No, sir.”

“Did Mr. Frank ever try to put it off on you?”

The question was objected to by the defense, and the judge ruled for the defense.

“Whom have you talked to about this crime?” continued Mr. Dorsey.

“I talked to you and to some of the officers.”

“Did you ever talk to Mr. Arnold here?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you know that he was an attorney for Mr. Frank?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you ever decline to talk to anybody about this?”

“No.”

“Have you ever tried to conceal anything?”

“No.”

Mr. Dorsey then brought from the negro the statement that Frank had remarked on the length of time it took him to fix the tape on the clock the second time and that was the reason the negro claimed to remember the incident.

About twenty minutes were consumed in the examination of a diagram of the building which the solicitor offered, the negro identifying parts of the picture.

THAT “THIRD DEGREE.”

Resuming the cross examination of Lee, Attorney Rosser brought out from him again the location of the laboratories and machines, etc. In the rear of the second floor of the factory. The attorney questioned him also about the basement and its lighting conditions. Mr. Rosser questioned him about his treatment since arrest—who questioned him, how they dealt with him, etc.

Lee denied vehemently that the police had discharged a pistol close to his head to frighten him. Mr. Rosser asked him if the police hadn’t cursed and abused him, and even prayed for him.

“Well, they never prayed much,” answered the negro. Attorney Rosser then asked him if the detectives didn’t question him continuously, one after another, and drive him almost crazy. “They didn’t get much sleep for a few days after I was arrested,” answered the negro. “As soon as I would lay down, somebody would call me and start in to questioning me.”

Mr. Rosser asked him about interviews with detectives, singly and in pairs or greater numbers; particularly about one said to have taken place in the jail recently when he was present with Jim Conley, Attorney Hooper, Solicitor Dorsey and Detectives Campbell and Starnes. Lee said that for the first two days in jail he was bothered all the time with questions, but after that he was left alone, and after the inquest he was willing to stay in jail because he wasn’t molested much.

Solicitor Dorsey asked the negro if Mr. Frank talked to him in the county jail.

“No, sir.”

THROUGH WITH LEE.

Lee was excused then by both sides. A deputy sheriff started with him back to the county jail. “I never want to get up there again,” said the negro, referring to the witness stand.

SERGEANT DOBBS ON STAND.

Police Sergeant L. S. Dobbs followed Newt Lee to the stand. He related how on Sunday morning, April 27, about 3:25 o’clock a call was received at police headquarters about the murder at the pencil factory.

He, in company with Sergeant Brown, Call Officer Anderson, Britt Craig, a newspaper reporter, and W. W. Rogers, rushed to the factory in Rogers’ automobile.

Arriving at the factory, they found the front door locked. About two minutes after they knocked, the negro, Newt Lee, came down and opened it. The negro told them a dead woman was in the basement, and led them down through the scuttle hole and down a ladder into the basement. There was a gas light burning dimly at the ladder.

The negro led the officers about 150 feet back toward the rear of the basement. Just in the rear of a board partition on the left, the negro pointed out a body lying on the ground. The body was that of a girl, lying on its face with the left side on the ground and the right side raised slightly.

The sergeant couldn’t tell at first glance whether the body was that of a negro girl or a white girl. He noticed the dark hair on the head. He turned the body over. The face was covered with dirt and dust. With a clean piece of paper he wiped the dirt from the one side of the face and saw that the body evidently was that of a white girl.

DESCRIBES WOUNDS.

To satisfy himself further as to the color of the body, the sergeant said he raised the skirt just above the left knee and saw that the skin was white. He noticed on the face where he had wiped it several slight wounds such as might have been made by the “picking” of a pocket knife.

A large cord was around the neck. The end of the cord trailed from the right side of the throat. This cord was drawn tight and had sunk deep into the flesh. A ruffle torn evidently from some underclothing was tied also around the neck but not so tightly as the cord.

There was a bruise on the right side of the head. Apparently it had been made by a blow. The hair was matted with blood. Sergeant Dobbs continued that after examining the body he called Lee, the night watchman, and questioned him about the matter, accusing him of having committed the crime or of knowing something about it.

He asked the negro how he happened to find the body in the dark basement. Solicitor Dorsey stopped the witness at this point and directed him not to give any hearsay evidence—to tell only what he saw himself.

“I looked around to see what I could find,” said the witness, “and discovered a couple of notes.”

Picking up some documents from his table, the solicitor started to hand them to him but changed his mind. He picked up a cord and some other articles which had been placed on the witness stand and asked Sergeant Dobbs:

“Have you ever seen this cord before?”

IDENTIFIES CORD.

The witness identified it as the cord which he found around the dead girl’s neck.

The solicitor held out his arm and had the witness loop the cord around his wrist and explain to the jury just how it was tied around the girl’s neck. The witness called attention to the slip knot in the cord. He also identified the strip of ruffle which was found around her neck.

There was not a great deal of blood on the head and hair, said he. The blood on the outside of the hair was dry, but down close to the scalp it was moist. The place where the body was found was damp.

The solicitor handed to him some documents which were identified by Sergeant Dobbs as the two notes and the tablet he had found near the body. The notes were enclosed in celluloid covers, front and back, with tape holding the covers together at the edges.

Sergeant Dobbs said that he did not know who the dead girl was, when first he saw the body. Later, said he, he learned that it was Mary Phagan. He described the position of the body, saying that the head was pointing toward the front of the building and was close to the partition.

The notes, said he, both were found under the sawdust near the head. Scratching around with his stick, he uncovered them. The tablet was just a few inches from the notes. He ordered that Lee be taken to the station house and locked up, said the sergeant.

He said that Newt Lee was cool and calm when he saw him first and that at no time did the negro seem to be excited. His attention was called to the diagram of the factory interior, produced Monday by the solicitor, and he pointed out the position of the body when he found it.

After Sergeant Dobbs had identified the diagram, Attorney Rosser took up the cross-examination. For the defense, Mr. Rosser questioned him closely as to the demeanor of Newt Lee when the police arrived, and Sergeant Dobbs repeated that the negro was calm.

SCRATCHED FOR NOTES

He did not remember saying at the inquest that the negro seemed to be very excited, he said. Mr. Rosser stressed the point that the sergeant had found the notes only after raking his stick through the sawdust.

He also brought out the fact that there was considerable trash, a number of pieces of paper, and several pencils, lying around in the basement. One of the girl’s shoes and her hat had been found, said the sergeant, on a trash pile in front of the boiler.

In reply to questions Sergeant Dobbs declared that it looked to him as if the body had been dragged on its face. There was a trail in the dirt leading from the elevator to the point where the body was found, he said; and in addition the face looked as if someone had dragged the body, holding its feet.

Mr. Rosser asked the witness if he was certain that this trail led from the elevator, and when the witness answered “yes,” he read the record of the coroner’s inquest wherein the sergeant had testified, he said, that the trail led from the corner near the ladder.

Mr. Rosser questioned him regarding the police test of Lee’s ability to see the body from the point at which he claimed to have been standing when he first spied it. Sergeant Dobbs said that it was possible to see the “bulk” of the body, but would have been difficult if the person had not been looking directly for some object.

Attorney Rosser brought out the fact that there was blood on the girl’s underclothing and that this blood was dry; also that the blood on her face was dry, but moist at the roots of the hair on the scalp.

The sergeant admitted that he found the finger joints of the body movable. The staple on the back door looked as if it recently had been pulled out.

COURT TAKES RECESS.

Attorney Rosser developed from the witness the statement that when he reached the word “night” in reading one of the notes, Newt Lee exclaimed, “That means the night watchman.” The witness declared that the strip of underclothing around the girl’s neck was over, not under, the cord. At this point Attorney Rosser completed his cross-examination, and at 12:30 o’clock the court recessed until 2 o’clock.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

Atlanta Georgian (Hearst’s Sunday American)
July 27^th, 1913

Theory Is That Watchman Surprised Sweeper Attempting to Dispose of Body and Entered Into Pact.

An amazing chain of evidence, laying bare the mystery of the two notes found beside the body of Mary Phagan, which have proved the most baffling of all the facts connected with the girl’s murder, came to light as in the possession of the defense Saturday.

According to the theory of the defense, Conley murdered the girl and was unexpectedly discovered with her body in the basement of the pencil factory by Newt Lee; that the night watchman declared the blame for the murder would be placed upon himself instead of Conley, and that the two notes, laying the blame upon the negro fireman Knoyls, and openly accusing the night watchman of the crime, sealed an agreement of secrecy between Lee and Conley.

Motive of Notes.

The first note, written by Conley, to soothe Lee’s fears, is believed to have been the one reading:

“Mama, that negro hired down here did this. I went to get water and he pushed me down this hole a long tall negro black that has it woke long lean tall negro I write this while play with me.”

According to the defense’s theory, this did not satisfy Lee, and hence the second one reading:

“He said he would love me laid down like the night witch did it, but that long tall black negro did it by hisself,” was written.

It is the claim of the defense that in the obvious exoneration of Lee by Conley, as is shown in the second note, despite the admissions of both that they were barely acquainted with each other lies the proof that Lee directed the execution of the note.

The defense will also show, it is said, that when the notes were picked up by officers, Lee called their attention to the peculiar spelling of words “night witch” and explained that they meant night watchman and himself.

Missing Time Punches.

Following the writing of the two notes, Conley is supposed to have been the companion of Lee until the watchman telephoned to the police. Then Conley departed.

The defense, it is declared, believes the notes to have been written between 11:30 and 1:30 o’clock on the night of the murder and will present the fact to uphold this theory that Lee’s time clock failed to show that he was at his post on the upper floor during this time. The time clock slip in the possession of the defense shows that Lee missed punching it at 11:30, 12:30 and 1:30 o’clock that morning.

Despite the claims of the defense as to the missing punches in the time slip, however, Leo M. Frank, on the witness stand at the Coroner’s inquest, declared that the time card showed that the negro made his rounds regularly on the night of the murder, and that no misses appeared, so far as he knew.

Prosecution Knows Theory.

That the prosecution is aware of the defense’s theory of the presence of the notes was indicated by the bringing of the two negroes together last week in Newt Lee’s cell in the county jail, when Solicitor Dorsey put them through a cross-examination. At this time, however, both are declared to have denied emphatically the conspiracy of which they are accused.

As astounding as may be the defense’s conception of the murder notes, it satisfactorily explains their potentiality and conforms readily with the other evidence in the hands of Frank’s counsel to direct guilt at Conley—namely, the torn bit of the dead girl’s pay envelope, found near the elevator shaft on the first floor, the umbrella of the girl discovered at the bottom of the elevator shaft, the murder notes, the broken latch on the basement door and the time slip with the missing punches.

Contention of Defense.

Here is the theory of the defense as it has been learned by the prosecution:

Conley is believed to have waylaid the girl on the first floor, and when she descended the stairway, after receiving her pay envelope from Frank, to have struck her from behind with the stick which was afterward found blood-stained near by. As the girl fell unconscious from the blow the negro is believed to have heard the footsteps of Lemmie Quinn entering the building. Witht [sic] a quick movement he is thought to have snatched the girl’s purse and cast her body and umbrella down the open elevator shaft, then dashed behind some boxes to hide. There he opened the purse, took out the envelope and tore it open, casting the torn-off top behind the radiator, where it was later found by Pinkerton detectives. After Quinn had gone upstairs, the theory is that Conley came from his hiding place, descended the ladder through the trap door to the basement, picked up the girl’s body and carried to back to the sawdust pile. In his haste, he is declared to have forgotten the umbrella which had fallen with the girl, and left it be found later by detectives. After depositing the body, Conley broke open the basement door and escaped, but returned at night fall to get the body and take it away. Then it was that Newt Lee is supposed to have discovered him, to have framed the murder notes and entered the pact of secrecy.

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

The Atlanta Constitution

Sunday, July 20, 1913

As Famous Murder Case Nears Trial the Public Mind Again Reverts to the Discovery of the Crime; and Again the Great Question Comes Up:

“What Happened in the Pencil Factory Between Noon Saturday and 3:15 Sunday Morning?”

By Britt Craig.

Automobile in which detectives and newspaper men went to the scene of the murder. In the machine are Detective Starnes, Harry Scott, W. W. (Boots) Rogers and John Black.

There are things that happen right before our eyes that defy the pen of a god to describe. The mind of a master would find itself lamentably incompetent, and the words of a Demosthenes would become panic-stricken in the attempt.

One of these was the night Mary Phagan’s body was found. It was a night as dramatic as the fury of a queen and poignant as her sorrow. It wrote the first thrilling chapter of Atlanta’s greatest criminal case, and it will live forever in the minds of those who knew it.

This story is no effort at description, because description is impossible. It is just a plain, ordinary story of the happenings that night when Newt Lee went down into the basement to wash his hands and emerged, overcome with fear, the discoverer of a crime that put an entire state in mourning.

A week from tomorrow, Leo Frank, manager of the pencil factory, where Mary Phagan’s body was found, will be placed on trial charged with the murder of the young girl, and interest in this mysterious crime again goes back to the night when Newt Lee startled police headquarters with news of his grewsome find.

Finding the Body.

Spot where Mary Phagan’s dead body was found. Detective John Black is shown in the picture.

Newt was nightwatchman in the factory of the National Pencil company on South Forsyth street. He is a typical negro and on the afternoon preceding his discovery, just to show how typical he is, he had spent the whole of two leisure hours allotted to him watching a negro play a banjo and sing cotton field songs at a patent medicine show on Decatur street.

It was between 3 and 3:30 a. m. that night when he arose from the desk in the office where he had been scribbling pictures of cats and dogs and railroad trains to while away the lonesome hours, and picked up his sooty lantern to make a tour of the plant. The world outside was fast asleep, and the only sound was the occasional faraway rap of a policeman’s night stick.

The building was dark and gloomy as a tomb and his footsteps created uncanny sounds. Something in the atmosphere of loneliness inspired him to hum the ancient strain:

“I got a gal in de white folks’ yard,
Brings me butter ‘n brings me lard,
Can’t help but love her, so help me Gawd—
Shout mourners, you shall be free!”

Newt went to the first floor where the big watchman’s clock ticks incessantly on the wall near the bottom of the steps. It was the only lifelike thing in the building, and Newt, like all other nightwatchmen, felt a deep attachment to clocks that tick-tock so humanly through the lonely hours of night.

The hands stood somewhere in the neighborhood of 3:15, showing that his tri-nightly trip into the basement was due. It wasn’t an inviting place, this basement, and Newt, as any other typical negro would do, made it a point not to make any more than the three required trips thereinto.

His “Watching” Perfunctory.

Mary Phagan, the young victim of a most mystifying murder.

It was his custom to go only to the bottom of the ladder that ran from the scuttle hole, from which point he surveyed what little of the cellar that could be perceived by the light of his lantern. Very seldom did he venture further. He preferred the upper floor, with its machinery and the lifelike clock and less possibility of ghosts and spooks.

That night, however, he wanted to wash his hands. Spots of ink had clung to his fingers as he had sketched the cats and dogs at the office desk. The superintendent had forbidden him the use of any but the basement sink, and it was there that he always performed his meager ablutions.

With a courage a negro manages to muster only when he drives from his mind all thought of everything, Newt descended the shaky ladder. A tiny flame flickered from a gas jet directly beneath the scuttle hole, but beyond the interior was as black as the soul of night.

Humming his tune so as to keep his mind vacant of other things, including fear, he walked to the sink. It was midway of the basement, just beyond the furnace. The darkness and solitude seemed so intense that he could almost feel it, and his steps beat upon his ears with a creepy thudding.

He set his lantern down beside the sink and washed his hands. Then he dried them on a newspaper. As he picked up the lantern to return to the scuttle hole it revealed something over in the corner just behind the edge of the partition that ran half the length of the basement.

Negro “Seed Something.”

It was an object that looked human and apparently had on a dress. Newt looked at it closely, his eyes attracted to the spot like a bird’s might be attracted by the charm of an adder. The longer he looked the tighter did something close itself around his stomach, and the more convincingly did the object assume human proportions.

It lay prone in the sawdust, and what appeared to be an arm was stretched lifeless from the shoulder.

He suspected it was a joke, and that someone had put a dummy in the basement to frighten him. He hoped it was! But, dummy or not, it certainly looked human—too human, in fact, for the uncongenial surroundings.

Impelled by a combination of emotions composed mostly of curiosity and fear, Newt strode to the spot. He picked up the lifeless arm. The flesh yielded beneath his grip. It dropped limply to the sawdust.

A panic no man can picture seized him. He wheeled around. The rush of air blew out the flame in his lantern. There was nothing left but darkness, thick, impenetrable darkness that shrouded even the glow of the gas jet at the scuttle hole. That and a quietude overwhelming.

Uttering a shriek that reached only the ears of the dead, he sprang erect and plunged headlong into the inky space ahead.

“Headquarters” Suddenly Awakens.

National Pencil Company building, on Forsyth street, in Atlanta, where Mary Phagan’s body was found.

Police headquarters had been dull and sleepy, an unusual condition for a Saturday night. Sergeant Sells, on the desk, had complained of underwork and the motorcycle men, lounging drowsily in their chairs, agreed that crime wasn’t what it used to be.

The hands of the clock pointed somewhere around 3:30. Boots Rogers, an ex-county policeman, dozed in an easy chair, too contented to go home until breakfast time. His big touring car stood at the burn on the outside.

The reporters on the police run for the Sunday papers had all gone home at 2:30—all except one, a Constitution man, who lived across town and was waiting for Rogers to ride him home in the auto.

Policeman Anderson answered the telephone that rang exactly at 3:30. Headquarters dozed on. Telephone calls, even at 3:30 a. m., are more or less insignificant. There was not even a stir as the policeman entered the booth.

“Is this police station?” came over the wire in an excited tone.

“Yep. What’s the trouble?”

“Somebody’s killed up here ‘t the pencil factory on F’syth street. Hit’s—”

Anderson dropped the receiver and left it swinging on the cord. He jumped from the booth and called to Sells:

“Killing up on Forsyth street!”

“Who is it?” asked Sells, sarcastically, as he swung a record book to the stack above his desk.

“I’m no mind-reader,” retorted Anderson, diving for the door.

The place became alive, Rogers awoke from his doze and jumped to his feet.

“Get in my car,” he called. “I’ll run you up.”

The Constitution reporter had reached for a telephone.

“Wait a second,” he was asking. “Let me call the office—there ought to be a story in this.”

“Wait like a lizard,” blazed Anderson. “Think we’re going to murders on schedule?”

The reporter’s office went unnotified.

Hurry-Up Run to Factory.

At a 40-mile clip Rogers whirled the policemen up Decatur street toward Five Points. At Decatur and Pryor Sergeants Dobbs and Brown were encountered. They jumped into the machine at Anderson’s call. Like a racing demon gone mad, the big car snorted through the uptown district and turned down Forsyth at Marietta street.

The pencil factory building stands almost midway of the block between Alabama and Hunter streets. It is four stories high and looms far above its neighboring structures. There is something in its black and gloomy aspect that is, itself, suggestive of tragedy. A wee light from a gas jet on the second flood [sic] flickered feebly like a beacon of lost hope.

The machine rolled alongside the curb and stopped with a roar. Its occupants clambered out. There were no lights on the first floor, and the interior looked as lifeless as the body Newt Lee had discovered in the cellar. Not knowing what to expect, but in preparation for anything, the policemen drew their pistols.

Anderson knocked at the door. No answer came. A suggestion was made to break through the glass, when there was a commotion in the vicinity of the stairway, down which came a streak of light—the lantern in the negro’s hands as he scampered down the steps from the office to which he had fled in fear.

The newcomers rushed in as he opened the door. Their presence seemed to inspire courage. His teeth chattered and the lantern trembled in his fingers.

Lee Glad to See Officers.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “I’m glad you come. It’s a girl, dead, down there.” He indicated the scuttle hole to the basement with a quivering finger.

The reporter was nearest it. Some news instinct that makes the newspaper man the luckiest of professionals guided him first into the black and yawning opening. Rogers followed. Before the shivering negro could chatter another word, the entire party had scrambled into the cellar. Lee was the last to enter.

Weird shadows danced on the walls from the dim glow of the lone jet. Rogers and the reporter forged their way through the darkness. Swinging his lantern, Newt was coming behind. Suddenly, he warned:

“Look out, white folks—you’ll step on it!”

He took the lead. Someone slipped and fell in the treacherous sawdust that gave way beneath the feet. The crunch, crunch of feet were the only sounds. The odor of pencil wood and lead pervaded the place almost stiflingly. Its smell will forever bring tragic recollection.

When the lantern’s rays fell upon the form that lay rigid and mutilated in the recess, the knot of men were too startled to move. The intense darkness and sight of the spectacle struck them momentarily powerless. It was a scene that a wholesome mind can attribute to only the stage-managership of Satan.

The body lay on its face. The long tangles of brown hair that straggled over the sawdust told that the girl was white and the dress that reached only to the knees, that she was a child. A jagged gash in the skull bespoke murder. Rigor-mortis had set in. Death had resulted hours ago.

Sergeant Dobbs was the first [to] speak:

“And this in a civilized country!”

Oratory will play a dominant part in the Phagan case, and it will be oratory of a masterful kind, but that simple little sentence, spoken by the policeman as he stood over the lifeless form in the basement darkness, will stand, unquestioned, the most eloquent and damning.

The mysterious murder notes, that went unsolved for weeks, were found, side by side, within a foot of the body. Suspicion, as is always the case with the police mind, was promptly directed to the negro. Someone flatly accused him. He was too astonished to reply. At length he stammered:

“Good God, boss! Do you think I’d do a thing like that?”

As he pointed a tremulous finger at the corpse, and all eyes were turned upon it, it was hard to conceive that any human could have done it. But it had been done. No one was dreaming. The body lay before them, ghastly proof of a fiend’s work. There were no baboons or monsters in metropolitan Atlanta. Someone was guilty—someone human.

So they put the handcuffs on Newt, the discoverer.

To fully convince themselves that the negro was guilty, the policemen made him go through a pantomime of his discovery. It would have driven Belasco’s greatest achievement to shame. There, in a solitude of the grave, with the basement for a stage and the policemen’s electric torches for light, the negro enacted a drama over the body of a slaughtered child that would strike terror to the heart of an audience.

“Third Degree” for Negro.

With a composure that comes from the reaction of panic, he clenched the lantern in his manacled hands and went graphically through every detail of his actions. It was, in itself, a third-degree that would have extracted confession from the hardest-hearted of murderers. Newt Lee manifested his innocence in an eloquence far greater than speech when he pantomimed his discovery.

But the police weren’t convinced. They sent him to headquarters to satisfy a public that demands immediate arrests in such cases.

With an arrest made, two substantial clues obtained in the murder notes, and a search being carried on for more, it became necessary to identify the victim. Rogers drove in his car for Miss Grace Hicks, a relative who lives at 100 McDonough road, and who is an employee of the pencil factory.

The body still lay in the position in which it was discovered, when she encountered the basement, sleepy-eyed and drowsy from the sleep from which she had been aroused. With a single glance at the upturned face, scarred and purple and swollen, she uttered a cry that pierced the building, and swooned into the arms of her kinsman.

“It’s Mary Phagan!” she wailed. “My God, who killed her?”

Sobbingly, she told the policemen of her attachment to the girl whose body lay stretched before her. They had worked side by side at the same machine. For years they had been inseparable chums. Mary was the sweetest girl in the factory and the prettiest.

It seemed a crime of Fate that she, of all others, should be called to identify the corpse of her friend.

She resisted being led away, begging to stay beside the body. The undertakers came and wrapped it in a tarpaulin and carried it away. A newspaper photographer came and made a flashlight of the spot. Detectives arrived and took charge of the scene with characteristic officiousness. Then came the inevitable mob of the curious.

Daybreak mounted over the skyscrapers and streaked the sky with purple. The city began to awaken. Less than an hour passed, and the night Mary Phagan’s body was found retreated before the brilliance of a Sabbath sun.

* * *

The Atlanta Constitution, July 20th 1913, “Grim Justice Pursues Mary Phagan’s Slayer,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)

Another in our series of new transcriptions of contemporary articles on the Leo Frank case.

The Atlanta Georgian

Thursday, July 3, 1913

Attorney for Watchman Declares Client Knows Nothing of the Actual Crime.

Bernard L. Chappell, attorney for Newt Lee, negro night watchman at the pencile [sic] factory, held in the Phagan case, stated Thursday morning that he would swear out a writ of habeas corpus for the release of the negro.

Attorney Chappell stated that he had come to the conclusion that there was nothing the negro knew about the crime except finding the body, and that the State had no right to keep him without some charge or as a material witness.

Lee was the first suspect arrested in connection with Mary Phagan’s murder. He was ordered held by the Coroner, but when a bill of indictment was offered the Grand Jury at the same time of the Frank indictment, no action was taken against the negro.

Weak Spots in Conley Tale.

Chappell said the writ of habeas corpus would compel the State either to order the negro held as a material witness or make some charge against him.

Conley, in relating his dramatic tale of carrying the body of Mary Phagan from the rear of the second floor and disposing of it at the direction of Frank in a dark corner of the gloomy basement, said that when he reached the elevator he had to wait until Frank went into his office for a key to the elevator door.

The defense will maintain, it is understood, that the elevator door had not been locked for some time. Witnesses will be called to testify that the door had remained unlocked in accordance with instructions from the firms with which the building was insured. From this alleged circumstance, it will be argued that the negro’s story is a fabrication devised to shield himself from the charge of murder and to shift the responsibility onto another man.

To Assail Whole Story.

This is only one particular of at least a score which will be assailed by Attorneys Luther Z. Rosser and Reuben R. Arnold, who are representing Frank. They will say in the first place that the elevator was not running at all on the day of the crime, in spite of Conley’s story that the body was carried down to the basement by this means. Harry Denham and Arthur White, who were working on the fourth floor of the factory, will be called to testify to this.

With the defense and prosecution awaiting the day when the great legal battle which will send Frank to the gallows or free him from the stigma of the murder charge shall begin, Frank’s lawyers are occupying much of their time in making a critical analysis of the succession of weird statements credited to the negro from the time he said he wrote on the Friday before the murder at the dictation of Frank the notes that were found beside the body of the dead girl until he issued his last affidavit.

The negro admitted the story of writing the notes on Friday was false. He admitted that his first story of never having seen Mary Phagan, dead or alive, was a deliberate lie. He is reported to have further changed his story by admitting seeing the girl before she was killed. But, except for this, he maintains his last affidavit is the whole truth. The defense believes it is as false as the rest and is preparing to go into court and break down utterly the fabrication that the negro has erected.

Notes to Play Part.

Although the notes found by the body of the slain girl have received little attention from those working on the case lately, they are bound to have a most important part in the trial of Frank.

The defense will seek to show that there could have been no possibility of their being dictated by the factory superintendent; that if the negro had taken Frank’s dictation, supposing that Frank had committed the crime, a much different sort of a note would have been the result.

Conley has shown since his arrest that he can follow dictation with a fair degree of accuracy. This being the case, it is reasonable to presume, the defense will hold, that he would have followed Frank’s words closely. But the notes are an incoherent, jumbled mass of words that are only half intelligible after the detectives have placed weeks of study upon them. The defense will contend that such a note can not be imagined, by any process of reasoning, as the dictation of Frank.

* * *

The Atlanta Georgian, July 3rd 1913, “Writ Sought In Move to Free Negro Lee,” Leo Frank case newspaper article series (Original PDF)